


Alive and Kicking

by fluorescentgrey



Series: Lifes Rich Pageant [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: College, M/M, Massachusetts, Music, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24702655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/fluorescentgrey
Summary: Some events of Wednesday, March 8, 1995, with soundtrack
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: Lifes Rich Pageant [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466290
Comments: 15
Kudos: 72





	Alive and Kicking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [usareis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/usareis/gifts).



On the way to the diner, the radio started playing Simple Minds’ “Alive and Kicking.” The guy who DJ’d early Friday mornings was a grad student in geology who was probably actively on shrooms. Richie had never felt so sober in his life, but also like a bucket of a kind of sharpening potion had been thrown over everything, which was not unlike the effects of some psilocybin buttons he’d tried over January term. There weren’t many colors in Western Massachusetts this time of year besides gray and brown and the occasional strike of red, a collapsing barn in the fallow fields, but they had been tuned to full saturation by some invisible hand. The song, which was probably one of the best of the ‘80s by bombasticness alone, contributed ineluctably to the fact that everything felt like a John Hughes movie. 

“What song is this,” Eddie said in the wary sort of tone, like he didn’t really want to know. “You did that thing.” 

“What thing?” 

“Where electricity goes through your entire stupid body,” Eddie explained. 

“That wasn’t what you were calling it last night.” 

“Oh my god,” Eddie said, though it was true. Probably because it was true. After they had pooled cash on hand — well, first after Eddie had said they had to stop doing whatever they were doing because it was heading toward a destination that he adamantly refused to get to in his car — and rented a sketchy motel room on Route 9, and Eddie had pulled all the blankets off the bed and thrown them in the corner of the room then washed his hands with soap and warm water for thirty seconds, he had instructed Richie to take his clothes off and lie down on the crisp white sheet. Obviously, Richie had done this, probably setting an all-time record for fastest unlayering in New England in March, and eventually he had to close his eyes, and he could feel his heartbeat shaking the mattress and the entire room. It was a catastrophic earthquake. If it got much worse, it was going to wreak havoc on tectonic reality and unleash a Richter 9.0 disaster. Eddie was sitting next to him on the edge of the bed, looking him over like there would be a test later. At last he said, “You’re so fucking hot.” 

“It’s Simple Minds,” Richie told him in the car. “It’s a banger for all time.” 

“Simple Minds as in ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’?” 

“See, Eds, you’re getting this. Don’t you feel the similar thematic currents — but wait, you’ve gotta take a left here, left left left!” 

Eddie twisted the monumental steering wheel of his hulking Buick station wagon, somehow jerking the unwieldy vehicle through the intersection with a screaming of tires. Richie clung for dear life to what his mother had always called the “Jesus handle,” feeling a kind of delighted urge to scream, as though he were on a roller coaster. At the exact moment in which they nearly lost gravity Eddie flung his arm out and across Richie’s chest. Then they were through, trailed by the sound of everybody else at the intersection honking at them. 

“Richie,” Eddie said evenly. His arm was still locked in, pinning Richie bodily against the seat. “I have no idea where we’re fucking going, why didn’t you just fucking drive!” 

“You want me to be seen behind the wheel of this Buick? I have a reputation to uphold!” 

“A reputation for what?” Eddie filtered through his extensive mental lexicon. For some reason, he settled on “Buffoonery? Besides, wouldn’t it theoretically be worse to be seen being chauffeured around in this Buick?” 

Richie hadn’t thought of this angle. “You can let go of me now,” he said. “Thank you.” 

Eddie did. “You’re welcome,” he said. 

If their eyes would have met, because neither of them would have said this aloud again, Richie would have attempted to telepathically communicate something like _What would I do without you_ and Eddie would have attempted to telepathically respond _You would probably be dead._ For both of them even the telepathic communication would have borne an air of aloof sarcasm in weak attempt to cover a shared vulnerability, which even now, in broad daylight, in the car, on the way to the diner in Florence like normal people, could not be seen. 

Instead Richie said, “It’s criminal to play this song when you can’t put the windows down.” 

“You’ll catch cold,” Eddie recited rotely. 

“Edward, obviously I know, I’m saying, it’s basically a violation of the Geneva Conventions to play this when it’s too cold to enjoy it the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed.” 

Eddie sighed. “Don’t joke about war crimes,” he said. 

They drove onward. Richie only committed grievous navigatorial crimes twice more before Eddie managed, against just about every conceivable odd, to float the Buick into a parking spot behind the diner. Outside it was blue and bitingly cold. In the shadows there were still piles of dirty snow. The sun like some kind of interrogating white eye. Western Mass was obviously beautiful all the time, especially if you had Richie's hyperactive psychedelic personality, the optometrist’s lens through which you saw the world constantly flipping filters depending on what song was stuck in your head (currently the new Pavement single, “Rattled by the Rush,” _o that I could bend my tongue outwards…_ ), but in the late winter it hefted a unique melancholy onto its broad, hunched shoulders. The icicles in the corners of all the eaves on all the houses sparking and dripping musically in the raw sun. And yet the condition of the college student meant that spring was by its very nature a beginning and an ending at the same time. As the valley started coming back to life, Richie started having to leave. As it began, it started having to be over, and when it all came around again, you were older, and different… 

“What are you thinking about,” Eddie said. “You’re acting weird.” 

They were standing in the doorway of the diner waiting for the hostess to come over and seat them. In the concealedishness Richie dared to brush their hands together. “You don’t want to know what’s in there,” he said. 

He knew Eddie sometimes did, but not always, and probably not now, judging by the way he pursed his mouth and went back to urgently evaluating the diner’s health code standards. The waitress waved at them from behind the bar and gestured toward one of the corner booths, and they settled in, Richie immediately going for the tiny coin-operated jukebox on the wall. 

“Before you even think about food,” Eddie noted. 

“You know me.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie said, absently filtering through the twelve-page menu, “too well. You probably already know what you want.” He pretended to consider for a minute. “It’s probably blueberry pancakes.” 

“They are pretty good here,” Richie said. “Not quite as good as your mom’s.” 

The jukebox here was basically all Motown and gay ‘70s disco music, making it Richie’s favorite in the valley. He found the song he wanted and started patting himself down for change, but he had spent it all — literally, even the nickels and dimes — on the motel room the night previous. He could feel the blood draining out of his face in panic until Eddie slid a quarter over the table into the field of his vision. 

“Bless you, Eds.” 

“You looked like you were about to have an aneurysm.” 

Richie put the quarter in the machine and punched the code. The little discs inside whirred and settled and the descending bassline that opened Tina Turner’s “River Deep, Mountain High” kicked in. He sunk down in the vinyl booth and let the wall of sound wash over him. For his part Eddie closed his menu and pushed it aside, sitting up straight, looking out over the diner without really seeing anything. Their knees tangled together under the table. 

“What are we going to do now,” Eddie said quietly. 

Richie sat up and reached under the table and Eddie’s clammy hand slid into his clammy hand. “I don't know,” he said. 

“I didn’t think you did,” Eddie told him. “It’s okay.” 

“Is it?” 

“Yeah.” He squeezed Richie’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.” 

This song always surprised him, even though he listened to it all the time, even though sometimes he and Claire would get drunk and scream it at each other in her dorm room while the ancient vinyl skipped violently and the neighbors came over to pound on the door to remind them that Some People had Finals Coming Up. It had so many secret layers of instruments and voices, and Tina could always push her voice another step beyond what you thought was her peak. 

They sat there in silence together listening to it, holding hands under the table. Occasionally they tripped and fell into the vertiginous tunnel of one another’s eyes and then stumbled out again knock-kneed to watch aimlessly around the room, catching their breath. When it was over Eddie dug another quarter out of his pocket and pushed it across the table to Richie so that he could play it again. 

\---

\--

-

**Author's Note:**

> this piece was written for usareis in grateful acknowledgement of their donations to organizations on the front line of the racial justice movement right now. i'm doing an [ongoing fundraising drive](https://yeats-infection.tumblr.com/post/620033047264378880/ok-everybody-i-hope-youve-seen-my-post-from-last) to support racial justice organizations and protestors - if you'd like to take part, and i hope you will, please give and message me with proof (on tumblr or at fgreyfx @ gmail) and i will write you something.
> 
> ["alive and kicking"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSpkgBVFp5M)  
> ["rattled by the rush"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3a3ldBRwbw)  
> ["river deep, mountain high"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULw1RHHPv5g)


End file.
